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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > Feminism
This book offers a practical guide to the everyday actions and decisions that anyone can take to promote gender equality and social justice in their own life and the world around them. Beyond Burning Bras: Feminist Activism for Everyone is an antidote to the poison of shock jocks who caricature the women's movement as a radical fringe of man-haters and paint activists as spoiled hooligans. Two real-life feminist activists, Laura Finley and Emily Stringer focus on the mainstream of everyday feminism, explaining what feminism is really all about and fanning out a spectrum of simple, imaginative, user-friendly ways in which ordinary readers can promote gender equality and social equity in their own lives and in the world around them. Beyond Burning Bras taps the life stories and first-person accounts of 50 ordinary individuals of every age, sex, sexuality, class, nationality, race, ethnicity, and learning style. All of them tell how they found within themselves the courage to take a stand on the front lines of feminist activism, whether in subtle private ways or in life-changing public ways. After a survey of the history of feminism in the United States, the authors and contributors show in successive chapters how feminism today meshes with other forms of activism relating to the workplace, sexual violence, the environment, politics, human bodies, the arts, youth, empowerment, and mothering. Comprises over 50 entries arranged topically to show the broad reach of contemporary feminism Presents more than 40 contributors, including scholars, activists, professionals, students, and more Offers a timeline of key events in feminist activism provided at beginning of volume Includes an annotated appendix of recommended resources for feminist activists, including books, websites, and periodicals
The volumes in this set, originally published between 1933 and 1988, come from sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, health and education. They: Explore a particular level at which the concept of equality must be applied if educational equality is to be realised. Present a philosophical analysis of the principle of equality. Provide a detailed examination of the correlation between health and wealth, or ill-health and deprivation in Britain. Include an important contribution to the study of social mobility in Australia. Evaluate the effects of converting rental housing into owner occupancy in the USA, the UK and Germany. Presents a detailed empirical analysis of the key dimensions of inequality and poverty in Wales.
Kelly Ives explores the worlds sexual representation in art and pornography, from a feminist viewpoint. The book includes chapters on the depiction of sexuality in art, from contemporary art and pornography back through the Renaissance to prehistory; on the problematic relations between showing sexuality and censorship; the history of porn; and women's art and how women artists have depicted sexual acts and identities. Fully illustrated, with images from the history of representing sexuality from prehistory to the present day. Includes notes and bibliography. KELLY IVES has written widely on feminism, philosophy and art. Her previous books include Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva: The Jouissance of French Feminism, Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous. EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION Firstly, there are as many definitions of art and pornography as there are people. Everyone has their own opinions, their own interests and realms to defend. There are the liberals who say that nothing should be censored, including pornography. Pornography is seen as part of artistic expression, and if people want to express themselves, they should, and if they want pornography, they should have it. This is the view of liberals such as Peter Webb, who campaigns for freedom of expression, and an art that should 'celebrate' eroticism. This is a familiar viewpoint, which we have heard made many times. In the (male) liberal view, sex is OK, so sexual art must be OK, so that much of pornography must be OK. The 'experts' on sex, the so-called 'sexologists' (Eduard Fuchs, Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich) argue that sex is a normal part of life, so it is natural that it should abound in art. Fuchs wrote; ' a]rt has treated erotic themes at almost all periods... it] lies at the root of all human life.' Everyone seems to have their cut-off points, however, their 'standards' of 'taste' and 'decency'. It's a very subjective business, the debates between art and pornography, and between pornography and censorship. As Wendy Moore writes: ' c]ensorship like freedom is an entirely subjective term'. What you like defines yourself. As Pierre Bourdieu put it: ' t]aste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.' Taste, choice, categorization and classification, then, defines the viewer, the reader, the consumer. Censorship, you might say, defines the culture. And 'sensitive' novelists are wary of writing 'sex scenes', because they know that what they write defines themselves. Yet sex is crucial to art, many artists say. As Gertrude Stein wrote: ' l]iterature - creative literature - unconnected with sex is inconceivable.'
This first full account of Amelia Stone Quinton (1833-1926) and the organization she cofounded, the Women's National Indian Association (WNIA), offers a nuanced insight into the intersection of gender, race, religion, and politics in our shared history. Author Valerie Sherer Mathes shows how Quinton, like Helen Hunt Jackson, was a true force for reform and progress who was nonetheless constrained by the assimilationist convictions of her time. The WNIA, which Quinton cofounded with Mary Lucinda Bonney in 1879, was organized expressly to press for a "more just, protective, and fostering Indian policy," but also to promote the assimilation of the Indian through Christianization and "civilization." Charismatic and indefatigable, Quinton garnered support for the WNIA's work by creating strong working relationships with leaders of the main reform groups, successive commissioners of Indian affairs, secretaries of the interior, and prominent congressmen. The WNIA's powerful network of friends formed a hybrid organization: religious in its missionary society origins but also political, using its powers to petition and actively address public opinion. Mathes follows the organization as it evolved from its initial focus on evangelizing Indian women-and promoting Victorian society's ideals of "true womanhood"-through its return to its missionary roots, establishing over sixty missionary stations, supporting physicians and teachers, and building houses, chapels, schools, and hospitals. With reference to Quinton's voluminous writings-including her letters, speeches, and newspaper articles-as well as to WNIA literature, Mathes draws a complex picture of an organization that at times ignored traditional Indian practices and denied individual agency, even as it provided dispossessed and impoverished people with health care and adequate housing. And at the center of this picture we find Quinton, a woman and reformer of her time.
View the Table of Contents. The second edition of this classic text substantially revises and extends the original, takes account of theoretical and policy developments, and enhances its international scope. Drawing on a range of disciplines and literatures, the book provides an unusually broad account of citizenship. It recasts traditional thinking about the concept and pinpoints important theoretical issues and their political and policy implications for women. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at national and international levels), rights and participation, inequality and difference, are thus all brought to the fore in the development of a woman-friendly, gender-inclusive, theory and praxis of citizenship. Wide-ranging, stimulating and accessible, this is a ground-breaking book that provides new insights for both theory and policy.
"An eloquent work. Somer Brodribb not only gives us a feminist
critique of postmodernism with its masculinist predeterminants in
existentialism, its Freudian footholdings and its Sadean values,
but in the very form and texture of the critique, she literally
creates new discourse in feminist theory. Brodribb has transcended
not only postmodernism but its requirement that we speak in its
voice even when criticizing it. She creates a language that is at
once poetic and powerfully analytical. Her insistent and compelling
radical critique refuses essentialism--from both masculinist
thinkers and their women followers. She demystifies postmodernism
to reveal that it and its antecedents represent yet another mundane
version of patriarchal politics. Ultimately Brodribb returns us to
feminist theory with the message that we must refuse to be
derivative and continue to originate theory and politics from the
condition of women under male domination." An iconoclastic work brilliantly undertaken . . . "Nothing
Mat(T)ers" magnificently shows that postmodernism is the cultural
capital of late patriarchy. It is the art of self- display, the
conceit of masculine self and the science of reproductive and
genetic engineering in an ecstatic Nietzschean cycle of
statis." "Nothing Mat(T)ers" encapsulates in its title the valuelessness
of the current academic fad of postmodernism. Somer Brodribb has
written a brave and witty book demolishing the gods and goddesses
of postmodernism by deconstructing their method and de-centering
their subjects and, in the process, has deconstructed
deconstructionism and decentered decentering! Thisis a long-awaited
and much-needed book from a tough- minded, embodied, and
unflinching scholar."
When we think of women's activism in America, figures such as
Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan invariably come to mind--those
liberal doyennes who have fought for years to chip away at
patriarchy and achieve gender equality. But women's interests are
not synonymous with organizations like NOW anymore. As Ronnee
Schreiber shows, the conservative ascendancy that began in the
Reagan era has been accompanied by the emergence of a broad-based
conservative women's movement. And while firebrands like Ann
Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly may be the public face of rightwing
women's activism, a handful of large and established women's
organizations have proven to be the most effective promoters of the
conservative agenda.
This book discusses erotic and magical goddesses and heroines in several ancient cultures, from the Near East and Asia, and throughout ancient Europe; in prehistoric and early historic iconography, their magical qualities are often indicated by a magical dance or stance. It is a look at female display figures both cross-culturally and cross-temporally, through texts and iconography, beginning with figures depicted in very early Neolithic Anatolia, early and middle Neolithic southeast Europe--Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia--continuing through the late Neolithic in East Asia, and into early historic Greece, India, and Ireland, and elsewhere across the world. These very similar female figures were depicted in Anatolia, Europe, Southern Asia, and East Asia, in a broad chronological sweep, beginning with the pre-pottery Neolithic, ca. 9000 BCE, and existing from the beginning of the second millennium of this era up to the present era. This book demonstrates the extraordinary similarities, in a broad geographic range, of depictions and descriptions of magical female figures who give fertility and strength to the peoples of their cultures by means of their magical erotic powers. This book uniquely contains translations of texts which describe these ancient female figures, from a multitude of Indo-European, Near Eastern, and East Asian works, a feat only possible given the authors' formidable combined linguistic expertise in over thirty languages. The book contains many photographs of these geographically different, but functionally and artistically similar, female figures. Many current books (academic and otherwise) explore some of the female figures the authors discuss in their book, but such a wide-ranging cross-cultural and cross-temporal view of this genre of female figures has never been undertaken until now. The "sexual" display of these female figures reflects the huge numinosity of the prehistoric divine feminine, and of her magical genitalia. The functions of fertility and apotropaia, which count among the functions of the early historic display and dancing figures, grow out of this numinosity and reflect the belief in and honoring of the powers of the ancient divine feminine.
This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism situates late 20th-century feminisms within a global framework of women's activism. Its chapters, written by leading international scholars, demonstrate how issues of heterogeneity, transnationalism, and intersectionality have transformed understandings of historical feminism. It is no longer possible to imagine that feminism has ever fostered an unproblematic sisterhood among women blind to race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality and citizenship status. The chapters in this collection modify the "wave" metaphor in some cases and in others re-periodize it. By studying individual movements, they collectively address several themes that advance our understandings of the history of feminism, such as the rejection of "hegemonic" feminism by marginalized feminist groups, transnational linkages among women's organizations, transnational flows of ideas and transnational migration. By analyzing practical activism, the chapters in this volume produce new ways of theorizing feminism and new historical perspectives about the activist locations from which feminist politics emerged. Including histories of feminisms in the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, France, Russia, Japan, Korea, Poland and Chile, Women's Activism and "Second Wave" Feminism provides a truly global re-appraisal of women's movements in the late 20th century.
This book provides a thorough interdisciplinary analysis of the ways in which artists have engaged with political and feminist grassroots movements to characterise a new direction in the production of feminist art. The authors conceptualise feminist art in Turkey through the lens of feminist philosophy by offering a historical analysis of how feminism and art interacts, analysing emerging feminist artwork and exploring the ways in which feminist art as a form opens alternative political spaces of social collectivities and dissent, to address epistemic injustices. The book also explores how the global art and feminist movements (particularly in Europe) have manifested themselves in the art scenery of Turkey and argues that feminist art has transformed into a form of political and protest art which challenges the hegemonic masculinity dominating the aesthetic debates and political sphere. It is an invaluable reading for students and scholars of sociology of art, gender studies and political sociology.
How should feminist theories conceive of the subject? What is it to be a legal person? What part does embodiment play in subjectivity? Can there be a conception of rights which does justice to the social contexts in which rights claims are embedded? Is the way the law constitutes legal subjects a form of violence? These questions lie at the heart of contemporary feminist theory, and in this collection they are addressed by a group of distinguished international scholars working in law, philosophy and politics. The volume, in which the concerns of one author are taken up by others, advances current debate on two interconnected levels. First, it contains original and ground-breaking discussions of the questions raised above. At the same time, it contains a more reflexive strand of argument about the intellectual resources available to feminist thinkers, and the advantages and dangers of borrowing from non-feminist traditions of thought. It thus provides an exceptionally rich examination of contemporary legal and political feminist theory.
Women are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women's desire is often slow to emerge. And men are keen to insist that they know what women-and their bodies-want. Meanwhile, sexual violence abounds. How can women, in this environment, possibly know what they want? And why do we expect them to? In this elegant, searching book-spanning science and popular culture; pornography and literature; debates on Me-Too, consent and feminism-Katherine Angel challenges our assumptions about women's desire. Why, she asks, should they be expected to know their desires? And how do we take sexual violence seriously, when not knowing what we want is key to both eroticism and personhood? In today's crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we remake our thinking about sex, pleasure, and autonomy without any illusions about perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we fulfil Michel Foucault's teasing promise, in 1976, that 'tomorrow sex will be good again'
View the Table of Contents aThe selected documents give a taste of Stantonas
often-contradictory ideas and successfully demonstrate how they
evolved over time under the influence of contemporary intellectual
movement. This work provides a solid basis for deeper
investigations into Stantonas role as a nineteenth-century feminist
thinker.a aThe editors are, there fore, successful in their aim: like her
or not, Stantonas ideas should be studied by any serious feminist,
historian or student of democracy at large.a aIt is high time to respect Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a founding thinker and actor in the shaping of American society, politics, and ideas. This fascinating book enriches our understanding by giving us her own most eloquent words accompanied by the wise evaluations of some of our leading historians and writers.a--Linda K. Kerber, author of "No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship" "I picked up this book wondering what, if anything, even these
formidable scholars could tell me about Elizabeth Cady Stanton that
I hadn't already read. I put it down in awe--with a new
appreciation of Stanton's brilliance, originality, and complexity
as the intellectual genius behind the first wave of feminism. Her
19th century vision resonates for everyone in 21st century
America."--Lynn Sherr, ABC News More than one hundred years after her death, Elizabeth Cady Stanton still stands--along with her close friend Susan B. Anthony--as the major icon of the struggle for women's suffrage. In spite of this celebrity, Stanton's intellectual contributions have been largely overshadowed bythe focus on her political activities, and she is yet to be recognized as one of the major thinkers of the nineteenth century. Here, at long last, is a single volume exploring and presenting Stanton's thoughtful, original, lifelong inquiries into the nature, origins, range, and solutions of women's subordination. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker reintroduces, contextualizes, and critiques Stanton's numerous contributions to modern thought. It juxtaposes a selection of Stanton's own writings, many of them previously unavailable, with eight original essays by prominent historians and social theorists interrogating Stanton's views on such pressing social issues as religion, marriage, race, the self and community, and her place among leading nineteenth century feminist thinkers. Taken together, these essays and documents reveal the different facets, enduring insights, and fascinating contradictions of the work of one of the great thinkers of the feminist tradition. Contributors: Barbara Caine, Richard CAndida Smith, Ellen Carol DuBois, Ann D. Gordon, Vivian Gornick, Kathi Kern, Michele Mitchell, and Christine Stansell.
This edited volume of translations covers the major political essays of India's first feminist Hindi poet. A devout follower and advocate of Gandhi, Mahadevi Varma is a household name in India and is a major woman of letters in the modern Hindi world. The essays collected in this volume represent some of Mahadevi Varma s most famous writings on the woman question in India. The collection also includes an introduction to her life, with biographical notes, an analysis of her importance in the field of Hindi letters, as well as a selection of her poems these latter because Mahadevi Varma made her mark in the world of Hindi literature through her poetry, and a volume of translations would be incomplete without a sampling of them. The introduction to the translated volume sketches Mahadevi Varma's life and work and her significance to both the development of modern standard Hindi as well as to the nascent women's movement underway in the 1920s in India. Little scholarly attention has been given in the academy outside of India to Varma s numerous contributions to women s education, to the development of modern standard Hindi, and to political thought during the Independence movement in late-colonial India. This volume of translations engages themes like language and nationalism, women s roles as artists, the politics of motherhood and marriage themes that continue to be relevant to women s lives in contemporary India and to movements for women s rights outside India as well. This volume of translations of Mahadevi Varma s feminist political essays is the first of its kind. While some of these essays, especially those from Mahadevi Varma s Hamari Shrinkhala Ki Kariyan collection have been translated by Neera K. Sohoni and published under the title Links in the Chain (Katha, 2003), there is no sustained treatment of Varma s political thinking in one, accessible volume. While there is ample work on Varma in Hindi, scholars of feminism (and students of Hindi who are in the nascent stages of language acquisition) have nowhere to turn for a comprehensive sampling of her work. Mahadevi Varma is also one of the most difficult writers to access even for trained scholars of Hindi language and literature. Her highly Sanskritized diction and her stylized prose sketches make her work a pleasure to read in the original but daunting to translate into English. This volume has contributions from some of the most highly regarded Hindi experts. In the editor s introduction to the volume of translations a brief biographical sketch followed by an analysis of the political climate of Northern India has been provided so that the reader unfamiliar with India of the 1920s-1940s will have the necessary historical context to place her work. The introduction to the volume also raises the issue of why she gave up writing poetry and turned solely to writing prose when she became involved with the movements for women s rights and national independence. Finally, the volume provides feminist cultural historians a rich archive of how Indian women like Mahadevi Varma were actively negotiating their lives as women, activists, artists, teachers, and married women. This work will be of use to scholars of Hindi language and literature in the US/European academy and should be of interest to cultural and feminist historians of modern India. This volume will introduce Mahadevi Varma s literary scope to an English-speaking audience, and will serve as a reference for feminist historians of the nationalist period in the Indian subcontinent.
This book offers scholars and students outside Korea some insight into what forms feminist biblical interpretation takes in Korea and what approaches Korean feminists adopt for dealing with the Bible in their writing and their professional lives. The contributors to this book represent a wide spectrum of the Korean feminist Christian movement. They include university and seminary teachers, ministers, and field workers. This book is a product of their numerous meetings and discussions on the practical issues that define contemporary Korean women's lives. In it, the contributors reflect on the diverse situations modern Korean women have faced and continue to struggle with, among them, the traditional religious culture based on Confucianism, economic globalization, postcolonialism, the problems of migrant women labourers, and the trauma of being forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War II. They view these situations in the light of the lives and experiences of women in the Old and New Testaments, and they look to the Bible for resources for dealing with them. This is socially engaged biblical interpretation. It goes beyond the academic study of the Bible to a wider engagement with the church and with Korean society. The volume is published in cooperation with Ewha Institute for Women's Theological Studies.
Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny. Trumpeted as orthodoxy, the resulting "findings" on everything from rape to domestic abuse to economic bias to the supposed crisis in girls' self-esteem perpetuate a view of women as victims of the "patriarchy." Moreover, these arguments and the supposed facts on which they are based have had enormous influence beyond the academy, where they have shaken the foundations of our educational, scientific, and legal institutions and have fostered resentment and alienation in our private lives. Despite its current dominance, Sommers maintains, such a breed of feminism is at odds with the real aspirations and values of most American women and undermines the cause of true equality. Who Stole Feminism? is a call to arms that will enrage or inspire, but cannot be ignored.
An examination, with feminist perspective, of Israel's fertility practices and policies surrounding abortion, family planning, "in vitro" fertilization and the welfare state. This book exposes the complex web of issues, actors, and power relations that shape the Israeli political agenda. At the same time, it contributes to ongoing feminist debates concerning the politics of reproduction and the role of the state in contributing to the oppression of women. Israel's commmitment to Zionist ideals and policies, its ambiguous relationship with Jewish Orthodoxy, and the intersection of the two at the level of gender relations have played a great role in determining the shape, scope, and direction of many government policies. This book explores the relationship between these three ideological and institutional forces in the context of development of fertility policy. In the process, it touches upon various points of interest, including the state's treatment of the Palestinian Arab minority and its relationship with the wider Palestinian national movement; the power relations and political agenda underlying policy-making in Israel; the development of Israeli social and political identity; and the use of gender to explain both the status of Israeli women and the overall unfolding of politics and policy-making.
This first major study of feminist theory, revised and updated here into its fourth edition, now takes the reader into the twenty-first century. With the renewed interest in feminism, which has been called "the "fourth wave" of feminism - the "first wave" being the nineteenth-century movement, the "second wave" the developments between 1960-80, and the "third wave" the emergence in the 1990s of ecofeminism, global feminism, the intertwining of the women's rights and animal rights movements, and so-called postmodern feminism - people are re-engaging with the basic question, "What is feminism? What does it mean?" Donovan's book provides a clear answer to the question, outlining the various strands of feminist theory: liberal, cultural, Marxist-socialist, Freudian, and radical. This Fourth Edition brings the discussion up-to-date, integrating the developments in feminist theory that have emerged in the last two decades and particularly since the publication of the Third Edition (2000).
THOMAS HARDY'S JUDE THE OBSCURE A study of Jude the Obscure using contemporary feminist and literary theory. Illustrated, with notes and a bibiography. Jude the Obscure (1895), Thomas Hardy's last novel, is a sister (or brother) book to Tess of the d'Urbervilles, before he turned to poetry and other forms of writing. The author attacks similar targets: the family, politics, religion, marriage, education and sexuality. Hardy was on fire when he wrote Jude the Obscure - it is a very angry work. Jude the Obscure, though, contains far more polemic and philosophizing than Tess or any of the earlier novels. The preaching and polemic threatens to undo the narrative, which is nevertheless 'realist', like other Thomas Hardy fictions. In Jude the Obscure, Hardy was stretching the novel to the limit, testing the boundaries of what is 'acceptable'. In Jude the Obscure, the things that say 'you shan't' are, variously, God, religion, education, circumstance, chance, nature, and marriage. All of the institutions and 'causes' reside inside the individual, which is what makes the problems they create so difficult to deal with for Sue and Jude. Patriarchy, culture and society are not in some 'out there' space, but in people. Hardy's thoughts on Jude the Obscure, as expressed in the Life and letters, include his desire for a novel about characters 'into whose souls the iron has entered'; a desire to make the story 'grimy' in order to heighten the contrast between the ideal life and the 'squalid real life'; the novel 'makes for morality', Hardy said; and ended up 'a mass of imperfections', a remark many artists have made of their work.
Offering an introduction to the key concepts and themes in French feminist thought, both the materialist and the linguistic/psychoanalytic traditions, this title explores the work of a wide range of theorists: Simone de Beauvoir, Chantal Chawaf, Helene Cixous, Catherine Clement, Christine Delphy, Marguerite Duras, Colette Guillaumin, Madeleine Gagnon, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Nicole-Claude Mathieu, Michele Montreley, Monique Plaza, Paola Tabet and Monique Wittig. It outlines the philosophical and political diversity of French feminism, setting developments in the field in the particular cultural and social contexts in which they have emerged and unfolded. The principal areas covered are: ongoing debates on the cultural construction and definition of sexual and gendered identities; the relationship between subjectivity and language; the roles played by both private and public institutions in the shaping of sexual relations; the issue of embodiment; and the relationship between gender, sexuality and race. Finally, the book traces the connections between French and Anglo-American feminist approaches and methodologies. |
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